Simon Cowell Upset Over British Campaign To Get 1992 Rage Against The Machine Song To Top Charts

Simon Cowell is not happy about a Facebook campaign encouraging the British public to help get a 17-year-old song by Rage Against The Machine to the top of the charts on Christmas.

The campaign, which aims to send the Los Angeles based band’s song “Killing In The Name,” from their self-titled 1992 album, to the top of the charts, was launched to stop the winner of Britain’s “X Factor” from hitting the prime spot.

And according to the U.K.‘s Guardian newspaper, Simon called the campaign “dismissive.”

“If there’s a campaign, and I think the campaign’s aimed directly at me, it’s stupid. Me having a No 1 record at Christmas is not going to change my life particularly,” Cowell said at an “X Factor” press conference on Thursday. “I think it’s quite a cynical campaign geared at me that is actually going to spoil the party for [the ‘X Factor’ finalists].”

Tracy and Jon Morter started the campaign on the social networking site and they’ve amassed over 500,000 followers so far.

“It’s a rallying cry,” Jon told British Music web site NME.com of choosing the song. “It’s been taken on by thousands in the group as a defiance to Simon Cowell’s ‘music machine.’”

The No. 1 record at Christmas is a big deal in the U.K., with chart battles having gone on between acts for years.

Jon said some of his Facebook page followers joined the campaign as a challenge to Simon, but he didn’t start it as a personal insult to the judge.

“Some certainly do see it as a direct response to him personally. If that’s what they take out of that song, then that’s fine for them,” he said. “We’ve nothing personal against him at all, we just do not want yet another Christmas chart-topper from that show again.”